Day: April 18, 2010

“Not only a musician of a generation, he is a cultural hero”-Vibert Cambridge

The Guyanese entertainment industry is in mourning for late musician Aubrey Cummings. Reports are that the 63-year-old who died on Wednesday night was found slumped over the steering wheel of his car, which was parked at the Standard Car Park at Hagggat Hall, Barbados.

His demise is believed to be as a result of a heart attack, prior he was a guitarist, vocalist, and a bandleader.

Reports are that the car that he was found in suddenly stopped outside of a shop at approximately 19:00hrs.

According to one woman’s report she closed her shop for the day and was about to leave when she noticed the driver slumped forward in the car and the police were summoned.

Based in Barbados for about 20 years he is remembered for his smooth renditions of songs such as ‘a flower name June’ and ‘Annalee.’

A relative said the entertainer should be laid to rest in Barbados.
In his profiles of Caribbean Artistry published January 18, 2004 Vibert C. Cambridge, Ph.D described Aubrey Cummings as ‘A Musician of A Generation’.

Whose experience provided valuable insights into the dynamics of Guyanese society during the late colonial period and the early post-independence era. According to Cambridge’s article Cunnings’ experiences also provide a useful lens to look at the place of music in Guyanese society.

Born in 1947 Cummings grew up in the Alberttown/Queenstown community and he attended Queenstown Roman Catholic Primary School.

There Cummings developed a reputation as an artist. He loved to draw. He would draw on anything he could find including the small squares of brown paper that were used to package the rice and sugar and on the back of old calendars and those would be displayed on the school’s walls. However, art did not make Cummings a household name in Guyana during the 1960s and 1970s, it was his music.

His decision to develop a career in pop music was influenced by Michael Bacchus and the Heartbreakers. In Cambridge’s article Cummings navigated alley ways and “boring” through palings from Crown Street to visit the group’s rehearsals at a home in Anira Street, Queenstown. Among the members of Bacchus’s band were Johnny Braff and Compton Edwards. The magic of popular music and show business excited him, so he took up the guitar and became a self-taught guitarist.

Cummings first joined the Bumble and the Saints band in 1965 during the string band era when Guyanese string bands and musicians attracted attention in the Caribbean. In 1965, Bumble and the Saints toured Barbados with Johnny Braff with moderate success and on his return from Barbados; Cummings joined Joe Wong and the Dominators as a guitarist.

In 1972 Cummings responded to an opportunity provided by Ossie Redman to travel to Brazil with the Telstars International Band. As the band leader the band, toured Manaus during 1972 and 1973. The band included Gerald Couchman (drums), Cummings on guitar, Monty Douglas (composer and arranger), Derry Etkins (organ), Billy Stephenson (Congos), Ray Seales (sax and vocals), Terry Jervis (trumpet), Colin “Bumble” Wharton (bass guitar), and Phil “Bumpy” Dino as the vocalist.

In 1973, Telstars International toured Barbados and recorded the important album ‘Orbiting’, which included songs such as “So lucky” and “World of Tomorrow.”

In July 1975, Cummings went on an adventure. He hitchhiked to Brazil. The adventure started with a plane flight from Ogle Airstrip to Lethem. He still remembers the Kabwowra flies that welcomed the hitchhiking party–one female and four males–to Lethem. The party crossed the Takutu River into Bom Fin and hitched to Manaus and then to Rio de Janeiro, a distance of almost 3,000 miles. From Rio, Cummings went on to Brasilia. He spent a few months there playing with Brazilian bands and as a solo artist at various clubs. He returned to Guyana in December 1975 ready for another engagement with popular music in Guyana.

Cummings’ next stop was with the Music Machine where the entrepreneurs behind this new band were Vic Insanally, Butch Parmanand and Pancho Carew. The band rehearsed at Insanally’s Church street home. Even before the band was formally launched, crowds would assemble to listen to the rehearsals. The band even had bookings before it was launched.

The members of the band included Aubrey Cummings, Colin Aaron, George Reid, and King Souflantis. It had strings and brass. The Guyanese “big band” had resurfaced and Music Machine was the first band since Combo 7 that paid its members monthly salaries. Though it had the best equipment the band lasted only about six months.

Cummings then joined ‘The After Dark Movement’ and for a period, that Movement was the resident band at Pegasus Hotel on Saturday nights.

On October 10, 1978, Cummings joined the exodus from Guyana and migrated to Barbados and with him he took the Yamaha 12-string FG 230 box guitar given to him by the late Roland Phillips.

In Barbados, Cummings established an active musical career as guitarist and vocalist. There he recorded the hit “A Flower named June,” followed by “Think I am in Love,” “Analie,” and the “Children of Sanchez.” For Carifesta 1981, he composed the song “West Indian People,” which has been covered by choral groups in the West Indies and Germany.

In 1984 and again in 1985, Cummings won the Best Male Vocalist Award in Barbados. During the same period, he consistently won prizes at the Caribbean Song Festivals organized by the Caribbean Broadcasting Union. His guitar work also attracted critical acclaim, and he was a regular contributor to the acoustic guitar festivals organized by Barbados’ National Cultural Foundation.

In his early years in Barbados, Cummings also returned to painting with help from Paul Altman, who provided him with space for a studio on Independence Square. It was in this space that Cummings developed the ‘Birds and People’ series of fabric paintings. They sold well.

By 1985, Cummings had established himself as a serious painter and was invited by Omawale Stewart to produce some pieces for the 2002 Barbados Jazz Festival. He produced three pieces depicting international and local jazz musicians in performance. They attracted positive attention and launched a new series of paintings. By 2003, Cummings’s art was displayed in leading art galleries in Barbados.

During the Cambridge Cummings is reported as being satisfied with the choices he made in his musical career and credited radio with promoting popular music in Guyana, especially the programme ‘Teensville’ and its host Bertie Chancellor.

Ayube Hamid is another broadcaster whom he credits with promoting Guyanese music. He recalls the live broadcasts that Ayube would anchor from night clubs in Georgetown and the recordings he would facilitate at Radio Demerara.

“If we did not have radio, many musicians and bands would not have been popular.” For example, Bumble and the Saints “Kissing Bridge” was the theme for a wake-up show on Radio Demerara.

According the Cambridge’s article Cummings also was saddened by the practices of some radio broadcasters to put down local musicians not because of their musical abilities but because of their social status. Despite those slights, bands such as the Yoruba Singers, Mischievous Guys, Rudy and the Roosters, and Cannonballs not only survived but gave Guyana some memorable popular music.

Cummings has said that popular music contributed to the healing of Guyana during the 1960s and 1970s and can do so again. His musical career is a reminder of the pervasiveness of music in Guyanese social life. Further, through his musical career, we can derive further clues about the influence of race, class, and colour on music in Guyana during the 20th century. His experiences demonstrated that Guyanese musicians worked hard. This attribute paid off as many of the musicians of Cummings’s era who have migrated established satisfying careers overseas. Aubrey Cummings is not only a musician of a generation, he is a cultural hero.